Monday, June 23, 2014

Here is something else I wrote a while ago that I'm putting up in order to keep up with content and traffic to my blog. If I don't preface the blog post by saying that it is OLD or something I wrote a while ago, assume that it is fairly recent or just happened. Here is another oldie.

In early December I was attempting to decant boiling water
out of a glass cylinder and some of the hot water splashed onto the dorsal
aspect of my right hand. More than a half-cup spilled onto my bare flesh. The
pain was unimaginably horrible; for the first time in years, I experienced an
entirely new threshold of pain.

The event happened at work. Coincidentally, the room I work
in happens to have little fridge with a little freezer so I was able to
immediately grab something freezing and apply it to my wound. Coincidence squared, I happen to work in a
medical clinic, with top-notch dermatology doctors, so I was able to walk
literally 2 feet out into the hall and grab a doctor that specializes in skin.
What are the odds?

I was cussing and shaking and crying all at the same time.
The pain was excruciating. I dashed out into the hall, running right into an MA
and PA who were having a conversation about skin cancer excision
techniques. “I have an emergency here.
Does anyone here happen to know anything about skin burns?” I wailed in agony.

Before I knew it I was escorted back to a room, lying on a
bed and being administered Vicodin. Within a few moments the dermatologist had
entered the room to assess my burn and trim away the peeling skin from my
wound. Cold packs were applied and the medical attention I received from there
onward was nothing short of superb. My hands could have not been in better
hands. My hand continued to feel like it was on fire, but I was pleasantly
amused by the irony—the intriguing coincidence of the situation. “We won’t need
to send you to the emergency room,” the dermatologist reassured me. “Trust me,
they wouldn’t be doing anything different—plus, we know a thing or two about
skin here.”

Although my burns were nothing out of the ordinary—only 2nd
degree— the experience was completely new to me and I couldn’t have possibly
received speedier medical attention. Had I been in another location---say, on a
backpacking trip in the Eagle Cap wilderness with my father and brothers, the
situation could have been much worse.

My experience made me think about the concept/nature of
coincidences.

Coincidences can happen and do happen. No one would consider these events to be
entirely out of the ordinary or something beyond the physical laws of
nature. Why, then, do we continue to be
astounded by them?

From my laypersons’ perspective, I think we feel shocked by
coincidences because we unwittingly think they should be less expected than two
random events happening that have no meaningful connection to each other. We
assume that meaningfully connected events will happen less frequently than
non-meaningful, random events and so we may be more shocked when they happen. Assuming that a non-coincidental situation occurs
less often than a coincidental situation might serve to make us feel a sense of
purpose—an over-arching, personal meaning that we extract from a coincidental
experience when it does happen.
Perhaps we might attribute the cause of the coincidence to God. Or, we might attribute it to a universal,
“knowing mind” that was aware of our condition and arranged the physical world
around us to perfectly meet our current needs at the time.

In the book “Thinking Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman points
out “We do not expect to see regularity produced by a random process and when
we detect what appears to be the rule we quickly reject the idea that the
process is truly random.”

If we are honest, we should admit that there is no ultimate,
grand-design or metanarrative behind coincidence. It might be reassuring to beguile
oneself into thinking, “Everything happens for a reason”—a platitude I despise,
by the way—but this really isn't so, is it? Sure, we might determine our own
subjective reason or purpose behind a particular life event but there was
nothing particularly transcendentally (objectively?) purposeful about an
experience.

Let’s face the reality here. There wasn't an ultimate,
supernatural reason why millions of Jews were killed under the Nazi regime or
why millions of children raised in West African, Islamic households die of malaria
each year. There is? How could there be?

As a Christian, what could you possible say is the ultimate
supernatural reason for these events—so these individuals could first suffer on
earth and then ultimately burn in hell in the after life?

Connecting the dots
between phenomena might aid our survival in certain situations such as when we
notice that the dots have meaningful applications to the quality (survival?) of
our lives. For the most part, however, the dots are unrelated and we more often
than not think particular patterns or stimuli are significant when they are
not.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Last night I was sitting at a coffee shop, busily scribbling
down thoughts for a potential blog post. Suddenly, I felt a “tap tap tap” on my
back. For a split second I felt a twinge of familiarity from the presence—as if
I knew it, “Why else would someone be tapping on my back if not to say hi?” A
millisecond later, I realized I’d never seen her before, but there was still a
feeling of warmth and familiarity. “I
need your help” she began. “Would you
like a ride, because I can help you with that” I said abruptly, cutting her off
before she asked for money. “What I need
is a place to stay. I’m trying to get enough money to pay for a motel to stay
in tonight.”

I needed to know more
about her situation. In the past I had experienced rejection and temporary
homelessness in my life, so my psyche was pricked. I asked a series of questions. In the end I
discovered that she and her boyfriend had been homeless for six months and had
been living outside, on the streets or in various parks or shrubby areas for
most of it. Her boyfriend of 3 years was an electrician, who had lost his job
and his house and everything else a couple years ago. After over-staying their welcome with family
and friends, they had finally been forced to live on the streets.

Although I have seen
plenty of homeless people, I never had bothered to interrogate them or get to
know about their situation. It is always easier to just make a general
conclusion and dismiss someone when you don’t know all the facts—not asking
specific questions about a situation will ensure wrongful judgment. Most people, it seems, won’t be bothered by
needy people and I got to witness this as I drove her to various places that
evening to beg. I told her that she could come and sleep at my place if she
needed a place to sleep for the evening but she declined. Although I did cave
in and give her $10 bucks (and transportation to other places to beg) I felt
somewhat helpless as I wasn't going to be able to give her $50 for her hotel
stay that evening.

I discovered that one of the best places to beg is a gas station
at 10:30 pm on a weekend night. A venue such as this has a constantly changing
atmosphere with lots of people carrying cash. Several people offered her a
dollar or two. Some guys asked her for her phone number but refused to give her
a dime. One guy actually asked her, “What can you do for me for $40 bucks?" She
was a 25 year old and quite attractive, might I add. She told me that she was
very numb to it all. She was acclimated to the ridicule and the abusive
treatment of others. When you are homeless, it seems like you are treated as an
inferior human being. Your positive rights are greatly diminished.

She and her boyfriend were both able-bodied and young but they had clearly been
making every effort to improve their living situation. He would take day jobs at Labor Ready when
they were available, she would offer cleaning services or any other service
that could bring in a couple bucks. Once she dumpster dived for another couple
and took out all the cardboard so that they could take it to a recycling plant
and make a little money from it.

They would often beg and she mentioned that sometimes you can make a decent daily wage by “signing” (apparently holding up a “anything helps” sign at a
stop light or intersection).

That night I learned a lot about what it means to be a homeless person. It was an interesting experience spending an evening with her
and attempting to help her out.